Posted on 15 September 2008

Angelina Jolie Talks About Wanted

Angelina Jolie makes a sensational return to the action thriller genre in Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted. Jolie plays Fox, a heavily tattooed, deadly assassin who has to train a new recruit to the shadowy organisation known as The Fraternity.

Jolie joins a stellar cast including James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Thomas Kretschmann the ground-breaking screen version based on Mark Millar’s comic books.

Wes Gibson (McAvoy) hates his life – with good reason. He’s working as a lowly accountant in a dead end job and his best friend is sleeping with his girlfriend. And what’s worse, he doesn’t care. He has no money and no prospects and he’s suffering panic attacks when his bully of a boss shouts at him. And then it all changes.

Wes is going about his mundane life when Fox (Jolie) literally bursts on to the scene with guns blazing to inform him that the father he never knew has just been killed – and the murderer is now out to target him.

Reluctantly, Wes is dragged into the inner sanctum of The Fraternity, led by the enigmatic Sloan (Freeman) an organisation that targets criminals and assassinates them for the greater good. He learns that his father was the deadliest of them all and that it’s now time for him to follow in his massive footsteps. But as Wes turns from deadbeat into deadly killer he begins to realise that the organisation might not be exactly as noble as it claims to be.

The daughter of French actress Marcheline Betrand and Oscar winning actor Jon Voight, Jolie, 33, first started acting as a child and later studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York and at New York University.

She won international recognition in the mid 1990s with films including Hackers and Foxfire. She earned both Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for her role in the made-for-TV movie George Wallace and again for her remarkable performance as drug addicted model in Gia. In 1999 she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Girl, Interrupted.

Throughout her career, Jolie has enjoyed switching genres from action – playing the popular computer game heroine in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and it’s sequel Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, an assassin in Mr and Mrs Smith and animation roles in Shark Tale and Kung Fu Panda – to more serious drama including Beyond Borders and, more recently, the highly acclaimed A Mighty Heart in which she played the widow of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl. Later this year she will be seen starring in the Clint Eastwood directed period thriller, Changeling.

Her work as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission For Refugees started after first visiting Cambodia where she partly filmed the first Tomb Raider. Since then, she has travelled to more than 30 countries, including many dangerous regions, highlighting the plight of refugees. She has also funded several humanitarian projects in Asia and Africa.

Jolie and her partner Brad Pitt have four children – Maddox, 7, Pax, 4, Zahara, 3, and two year old Shiloh.

Q: There’s a key scene in Wanted where the killer is chasing you and James’ character and you are hanging out of a car firing back at him. It looks incredible and frankly, highly dangerous. What was that like to film?Read the full story